Script Writing 3

Course Description

This course is designed to enable students to advance their scriptwriting skills for short-form documentary and fictional works. By studying and using a number of scriptwriting models, students will develop a structural approach to screenwriting.

Classes will be devoted to writing and reading students' work with the intent of applying the principles of structural screenwriting to different components of a screenplay - character development; set-ups and pay-offs; turning points; conflict and resolution, and dialogue.

Students will write (individually) a main script for a studio-based 10-minute drama (8-10 pages max.). These dramas are developed for selection towards the end of the semester for the four-day studio shoots to be produced in the winter semester. In addition, students will act as story editors on each others work delivering annotated and written critiques, as well as in-class feedback. Students are highly encouraged to keep a daily/weekly scriptwriting journal as a source of ideas for their scripts.

Students will learn to submit their scripts in strict screenplay form as recommended by the Writers' Guild. Students will also learn the value of constructive criticism and notes, as it relates to their own work and the work of others. Assignments handed in are graded and thus should be thoroughly proofed and edited according to professional standards and guidelines before submission to professor and class. Note that assignment deadlines will be assigned on an individual basis according to the in class pitch and reading schedules.

Each section will select through class vote and professor's recommendations four scripts that will move on to the Studio Drama table reads in Production Management class. From these 12 scripts, six final scripts will be selected for production.